He shared in their humanity so that he might free those
who were held in slavery by their fear of death. Hebrews 2:14-15

“How does the resurrection of Jesus transform your understanding and practice of leadership?” If someone asked you this question could you answer it clearly? Think about it for a minute. If this most pivotal event at the core of our faith doesn’t have an impact on how we lead then surely something is wrong. Isn’t it?

Toxic Leaders and the Fear of Death

As I thought about this point, I recalled a fascinating analysis of toxic leadership provided by Jean Lipman-Blumen in her book on toxic leadership. As with other poisonous things, these leaders come in varying degrees of toxicity. Some are mildly poisonous — one might say “not altogether bad” and are found in small domains, offices, churches and ministries. They set unreasonable goals, promote excessive internal competiton, and create cultures of blame. Others rise to the senior ranks of great corporations and lead their companies into disaster. They violate the dignity and rights of others, bend or ignore ethical obligations, and divert resources to elevation of their own grandeur.The worst are among the monsters of history who names have become bywords for evil. Their legacy includes death, fear, and devastation. What all toxic leaders have in common is that they “leave their followers worse off then they found them.”

Jesus described these leaders by appealing to his disciples own observations. “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.” (Mark 10:42) If you study this passage closely you find that the text uses two verbs that describe perfectly normal and good leadership behaviors (“rule” and “exercise authority”) but it adds to each them the same Greek prefix, “kata,” which can mean to do something from “above down onto” or “from the side against.” It’s a perfect description of toxic leaders. They rule “from above” directing commands “down” onto their followers. They gain compliance by using their authority as a club to threaten and push their followers around (Mark 10:42). Adding insult to injury Luke 22:25 tells us that they call themselves “benefactors,” justifying their abusive behavior by saying it was for the good of others.

Existential anxiety ticks
at our human core.

Why do people follow such leaders? The answers are complex, but Lipman-Blumen puts fear of death at the head of her analysis. “Existential anxiety ticks at the very core of the human condition,” she says, “from the convergence of the known and the unknown: the certainty that death awaits us, welded to the uncertainty of its exact time and circumstances. . . . The infinite possibilities of life, lashed to the finite limitations of inevitable death, induce two profound emotions: exhilaration and desolation.”

Driven by this tension between hope and death humans look for ways to cope. “One powerful way beckons us: leaders who vow to protect us. Leaders offer various reassuring illusions. The most seductive illusion of all promises escape from death, either physically or symbolically, but only if we follow these leaders.” The result is that far too often people cling to toxic leaders who make them feel safe even though their destructive behaviors provide ample reason to abandon them. “If gods or human leaders — and we see how difficult it can be to distinguish between them — promise us safety, we are only too quick to accept. We rarely consider the price we may eventually have to pay for such insurance.”

In this we see that the words of Hebrews 2:14-15 are more true than we could have imagined. Out of fear of death we become slaves to toxic leaders who leave us worse off than they found us. Can there be any escape?

The Resurrection Transforms Leadership

The resurrection of Jesus changes everything. A firm faith in his resurrection can free us from the fear of death and the otherwise irresistable human drive to rely on even toxic leaders for comfort and reassurance. Resurrection-based living is a bold lifestyle that reframes death, transforming it from the core issue of human life to the entrance into a still greater reality with standards that supersede all human rationalizations.

Listen to Festo Kivengere
on the resurrection (2:16)

It was resurrection-inspired boldness that turned the original apostles from a small and despondent band hiding in a locked room into bold witnesses who faced the highest authorities with courage and unshakable conviction. Down through the ages of Christian history the principle has been proven true ever and again. Faith in the resurrection of Jesus releases people from the compulsion to seek the illusory safety offered by toxic leaders. And it does even more. Those who are inspired by the vision of the resurrection of Jesus find courage to lead boldly and to do what is right even in the face of mortal threat.

The Resurrection-Inspired Leadership of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides us with a powerful example of a believer whose resurrection faith gave him courage to confront Adolf Hitler, one of the most notorious toxic leaders in all history. In 1933 he delivered a radio address in which he warned that Germany was slipping into an idolatrous cult of the Führer (leader), who would turn out to be a Verführer (misleader). The broadcast was cut off by the authorities even as he was speaking in what may have been the first overt act of censorship by the emerging Nazi power.

Bonhoeffer in
Prison

The strength of his moral conviction led him to oppose Hitler, eventually to become a co-conspirator in a plot to assassinate this “misleader.” Arrested soon after the attempt by the Gestapo, he spent the last two years of his life in prison. On April 8, 1945 when was asked to lead a prayer service among the prisoners, he chose as his text 1 Peter 1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” What hope is there in a Gestapo death cell? None whatsoever unless it’s a hope in Jesus who was raised by the power of God from the grave.

Bonhoeffer never finished the service. Before it could be concluded two Gestap agents burst into the cell and led him away to the place of execution. As he was led away he whispered to a fellow prisoner a last message. “Tell my friend that this is the end — for me, the beginning of life. Tell him . . . I believe in the principle of our universal Christian brotherhood which rises above all national interests, and that victory is certain.”

Bonhoeffer modeled
Gospel-inspired leadership.

Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law, Gerhard Liebholz, was profoundly affected by this example of faithfulness. He wrote, “he has set a model for a new type of true leadership inspired by the gospel, daily ready for martyrdom and death and imbued by a new spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.”

Janani Luwum Confronts Idi Amin

A similar example comes to us from Africa where Archbishop Janani Luwum’s courage in confronting the evil of Idi Amin led to his death at Amin’s hands. Once in a sermon Luwum recalled the day he was converted. He remembered thinking, “I have become a leader in Christ’s army. I am prepared to die in the army of Jesus. As Jesus shed his blood for his people, if it is God’s will, I will do the same.”

Archbishop
Janani Luwum

Many years later as the darkness of Amin’s persecutions closed around the Christians of Uganda, Luwum resolved to stand with courage in defense of the Church no matter what it might cost. He said, “If the church faces extinction in this my native land, I will be around to die first before the Church falls, collapses or dies. It will have to fall on me. I totally surrender myself to the Church.”

Early in the morning of February 5th, 1977 Luwum was arrested and driven away to torture and execution. His last words to his brother were, “Do not be afraid. I see God’s hand in this.”

Last year, on the 30th anniversary of his death, a memorial service was held in Westminster Cathedral, London. Here is the closing prayer from that service which sums up as perfectly as anyone could the essence of resurrection-based leadership.

God of truth, whose servant Janai Luwum walked in the light,
and in his death defied the powers of darkness:
free us from fear of those who kill the body,
that we too may walk as children of light,
through him who overcome darkness by the power of the cross,
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and for ever.